Among Other Things
by drugzuo
Summary: 10 years have passed since the battle on the Fold but neither Alina nor Nikolai has aged a day since. There have been rumors of sightings of the Darkling in the North. Is he still alive? If so, what could this mean for Alina? [Darklina] [Nikolina(Mild)]


The screams echoed around me, the silence of the dead, the sounds of the close to dying. I wanted to scream with them. To let them know that they weren't alone in their suffering. But I held my breath as darkness crowded in; I didn't want to feel the tendrils slither down my throat. I didn't want to taste the pain of the people I could've saved. The grunts and shouts of people fighting surrounded me, assualting my senses. I felt dry air on my skin as unseen monsters beat their wings above me. No light in the world could protect me from them now and I welcomed that fact. The promise of it all ending, all of the pain and the anger. The thought of it was almost comforting. Almost. And it was with this knowledge that I steeled myself for what I knew was about to come next. It always did.

Sergei's body appeared before me, strung up by some dark force I couldn't see, made indecipherable by the darkness that was already surrounding me. He sobbed, choking on his prayers.

"Sergei!" I shreiked, but where words should've been there was only silence.

"Sankta." His limbs pulled taut as whatever power that held him, strenghthend his bonds.

Some part of me understood what was happening. Every part of me knew that I was powerless to stop it. None of this meant that I wasn't rushing towards him, arms raised to wield the Cut that I knew wouldn't come, to free him from the fate I'd seen him suffer a thousand times before, each time thinking that I couldn't bare to see it again. He looked up at me then, meeting my eyes with a cold and unrelenting stare, all trace of the sobs that racked his body before disappeared. I yanked at his clothes, trying feebly to set him free.

"No! No. No. No. No. Please." Warm tears ran freely down my face as my knees gave in.

"Don't let me be alone."

He didn't scream when the darkness pulled him apart. I'm never powerful enough to save him.

...

I don't scream anymore. I'm so used to the nightmares I've trained my body to smother itself. The walls of the orphanage aren't thick enough for the sounds of my screams to not wake the children and I don't think I could bare the looks the teachers throw my way. And Mal. He doesn't bother to ask what I dream of anymore. I don't bother to wonder if he dreams the same thing. But in the 10 years since the battle on the Fold, we'd both talked little about the people we mourned.

The Darkling is gone. You see it in the faces of the people of his country; and this is undoubtly his country. You see it in the gray sands of what was once the Unsea. I see it in the bareness of my neck where the Stag's collar rested, once upon a time. I see it in the sunlight that is no longer at my command.

But sometimes, when the the darkness doesn't seem so forboding and I can pretend that Alina the Saint was nothing but a peasant's tale, passed between the lips of the hungry, I imagine that theres a littles more to the shadows. That there's something off in the way they dance.

 _He's dead_ , I tell myself, _but I'm not sure if he'll ever stop haunting me._

...

Dirty hands tug at my braid as I work to clean the paint off of my arms. I wasn't sure which one of the kids decided to linger today instead of playing in the feilds but it didnt matter, I had a special smile for every single one of them. I turned, fully prepared to splash the hair tugging culprit, but the room behind me was empty. Drying my hands, I scanned all of the nooks and cranies for today's victim. Saints know, I'm a monster when it comes to hide and seek. Surprisingly, I found no one.

"Hmph. Looks like today's gonna be a challenge." I called into the empty house. My taunt was met with a giggle.

Smiling to myself, I sauntered into the next room only to stop short at the sight before me. A well manicured man was sitting in a chair by the empty fireplace, his hair glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the window. The child, I noticed belatadly, was scurrying out of the room, clutching whatever prize he'd given her tightly in her hands.

"You're looking well." I sighed, folding myself into the adjacent chair, all formalities forgotten.

"I suppose thats the only compliment I'll get from a married woman." Nikolai grinned back.

"Its the only compliment I'll give to a king that shows up unannounced in my favorite chair." He laughed, a pleasant sort of sound, and I felt my edges soften."So I take it Ravka isn't under attack and the kingdom in dire need of a retired veteran?"

The king raised his hand to his chest in mock dismay. "Come now, Alina. I had no idea you had the power to read minds. And here I thought we were just disturbingly in tune."

"Among other things." I said as I studied him.

Nikolai looked young. Not a day over 21 which we both knew to be false. His hair had grown since the last time I'd seen him, curling elegantly to his shoulders. The medals on his uniform glinted sofly, medals he'd earned fighting his father's wars. And the gloves. They hid his scars, reminders of the time he'd spent as a monster at the Darkling's hand. They were the only change in the person he'd used to be, atleast to the people who don't know him as well as I do.

"Among other things." he repeats, mirroring my stare.

I already know what he saw. He saw a white haired girl who'd seen -and lost- a lot more than she was meant to, a girl who he'd once asked to rule beside him as his queen. Among other things. Neither one of us could shake the darkness, shake _his_ shadow. Among other things. Neither one of us had aged a day since the destroying of the Fold.

"It gets lonely out here sometimes," I say quietly, "without powerhungry tyrants to destroy."

His lips quirk into a ghost of a smile. "If we were remincisng I'd tell you that I missed the sea and Tolya's snoring." But the look in his eyes said that we weren't. "Besides, I'm sure Mal is all the tyrant you need. Where is he, anyway?"

"Doing what he does best." I say as I unfold myself from my chair. Mal was hunting. Which these days was a synonym for escaping.

Once upon a time, he was the best tracker in Ravka. The best in his unit, the best in the First Army. I'd once told the Darkling that he could make rabbits out of rocks. But that was before we discovered that his ability was all apart of some sick twist of fate set in motion many generations before. He'd lost it on the Fold, and I knew that some part of him still mourned that loss.

"Ah so he's seducing beautiful women. Shame. And I thought you two were perfect together." I was contemplating slapping that crooked smile off of his face.

"You missed a button." I say, offering him my hand.

"No I didn't. I checked four times." He still looked down to check again, ever so concerned about appearances, before placing a gloved hand in mine.

...

That evening, we sat before the lit fireplace in that very same sitting room, Mal's head resting on my knee. He was always tired these days, and after the long hunting trip he'd succefully embarked on with the older children, he was almost asleep the minute he'd hit the floor. They'd brought back four large rabbits, fat with the vegetation from the woods, and broad grins on their faces. It took atleast twenty minutes to clean the dirt off of the floors that they'd tracked in. All the while the older women of the house clucked and fussed over the mess. Smiling to myself, I thought that they probably didn't mind so much if it fed their bellies.

Nikolai hadn't said a word since dinner and I wondered again what exactly had brought him here. He visited of course but never without warning. I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something was... off about him, tonight. I wasn't sure if Mal had noticed it, too.

"You're not gonna tell me that you couldn't stand another day without seeing my beautiful face again, are you?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"Why of course not." He said, the corners of his mouth curving upwards. "We both know I'm a lot prettier than you, I could just stare at myself and be content."

I chuckled. "I won't deny it."

I looked at him full on, then. Whatever his reasons were for coming, they gave him no pleasure. His expression was haunted, a face he wore only when we were alone, because the feeling was something we shared.

He turned bleak eyes on me. "There have been desertions in the Second Army," he said slowly. I just stared. "And-" his hands began to shake horribly but he didn't seem to notice. Whatever his next words were, they were choking him. "There have been sightings in the North."

He didn't need to say anymore. I didn't need to ask. Mal stirred at my knee, groaning softly in his sleep.

"He's dead."

"Not according to what I've heard, what my sources have been telling me."

"I killed him." I couldn't ignore the pain in my chest, the tightening around my heart. He couldn't be-

"I feel it." He said, his face crumpling into something like shame. "I feel it with every passing day. I knew it before I was even told, Alina."

"Feel what?" Mal asks, groggily. Instantly, the vulnerability in Nikolai's face is gone, replaced by a cocky grin.

"The love," he says, with a wink.

...

He left early the next morning, mumbling something about a council in the next town over. When I'd hugged him goodbye, his arms felt a little unsteady. I was worried about him. Nikolai's nightmares had to be a lot darker than mine.

"Where's your guard?" I wondered aloud in dismay. His face lit up at the sight of my furrowed brow.

"Racking the countryside for one dashing privateer." he said as he lifted himself onto his horse with his usual swagger.

"You're not a privateer, anymore, Nikolai, you're the king."

"Among other things!" he called over his shoulder, kicking his horse into a gallop.

"Some things will never change." grumbled a voice at my shoulder. I turned to see Mal's stocky form behind me.

While Nikolai and I hadn't changed, he certaintly had. His hair was graying at the temples and his shoulders slumped just a bit when he thought no one was looking. We both knew that somthing was wrong, that something strange was happening to me, but we had no way to fight it, which only helped to widen the chasm that had grown between us. I'd even heard whisperings of the handsome orphanage owner and his strange teenage wife. I know the rumors have to be wearing on him.

"Sometimes we don't want them to." I wrap my arms around his shoulders in an attempt to wipe the scowl off of his face. Saints, he looked tired.

"Even if its for the best?" he asks, his blue eyes staring into my brown ones. He looked angry, though I couldn't fathom why. Mal was never angry, all smiles for the people around him. He usually seemed, well, happy.

"Whats wrong?" I step back so I can look at him better.

My hands flutter over the wrinkles on his forehead and the circles under his eyes. The toll time had taken on him was obvious, it made me feel lonely, like I was being left behind. He breaks out of my grasp, striding towards the porch steps. When I don't follow he turns to look at me, and I know we're both thinking the same thing. There was a time when I would've followed Mal anywhere, whether he'd asked me to or not. The thought brings tears to my eyes and I tell myself, _he didn't ask me to._ An incredulous voice in the back of my head replies, _he shouldn't have to._

"Can I speak to you for a moment?" he asks, sweeping his arm in the direction of our room's window on the floor above. Nodding, I follow him up the steps and into the house.

Children run past us, brushing against our legs in their hurry to get to the feilds for whatever game they're playing today. I wish I could follow them.

Mal closes the door to our bedroom and then turns to look at me. Theres something sad in the way he does it and wonder if he overheard the conversation from the night before.

"Some of the older children were talking, yesterday." he says, finally breaking the silence. He tugs the sleeves of his light blue feild shirt down over his arms before folding them. I wait. "The ones who remember us when we were _both_ young and stupid." my heart skips at the way he emphasizes the word like he's just swallowed something distasteful.

"And?" I breathe. "That's never bothered you before."

"Well it does now. I feel like I'm becoming a different person with all of this weighing down on me." He sighs heavily. "I wonder if I'm going to lose you. If- if you're going to run off like some courting young girl with a crush on a young officer."

"Mal there's no way I'd ever leave you." I say, sitting down on the edge of the bed in an attempt to slow my breathing, to calm my racing heart. I knew we'd have this conversation sooner or later.

"I saw the way you looked at him, like he was taking some part of you with him. And what am I supposed to think!" he bellows, the anger bursting from him in sharp gasps. I'm suddenly glad none of the children are in the house. "What am I supposed to think when he shows up in _our home_ , Alina! In our home unannounced! He says- he says to see _you_." He points a shaking finger at me, face still red from his outburst.

"How do you think I feel?" I shout back. "I didn't ask for this!" I'm not sure when the slow trickle of tears turned to full on crying but I could feel my face reddening as they streamed down.

He raises his palms to his eyes. "I just... I just feel like I'm losing you. We don't talk anymore, I'm lucky if we even cross paths. I feel forgotten. Like maybe the life we've built isn't enough for you anymore." He shifts uncomfortably. "It feels likethe day of our first trip on the Fold. After he'd taken you, I wasn't sure to run after you, steal you away and disappear, or to just let you go because some part of me wondered if it was for the best."

At the mention of the Darkling, my body stiffens. How many times had he lived through this situation?

"You let me go." I remind him. But we both know he hadn't, not really.

"Yeah." is all he says, turning to leave.

I wasn't exactly sure where this left us, but I knew it couldnt be anywhere good. He was being unfair but hadn't I been equally so? I felt like screaming but I sank down onto the bed, covering my face with a pillow instead.


End file.
